Without opioid painkillers to dull the ache in his knees and other joints, Arnold Wilson wouldn’t be able to walk half a block. The 63-year-old former New York City nurse has crippling arthritis for which he takes OxyContin twice a day and oxycodone when he needs additional relief.
For the past several years, he’s kept another drug on hand as well: naloxone, an overdose reversal drug often referred to by the brand name Narcan.
Although overdose deaths from illicit drugs sold on the street make headlines, the risk of overdose is just as real for patients who take opioids prescribed by their doctors.
